SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION
Trying to make sense of the films we've seen during this year’s festival, I created a list of subjects: food, clothing, shelter, money, music, art, love, hate, sex, fear, pregnancy, birth,death, travel and multiculturalism – tracking them in the films we watched. One notable surprise this year was the prevalence of bathroom scenes, primarily showing a female character sitting on the toilet. Usually this is intended to create a feeling of intimacy with the character, not unlike scenes of sexual activity. However, in one film, the Peruvian Octubre directed by the Vega brothers, the toilet scene was important to the development of the story. Sophia (the woman next door for whom Clemente, the protagonist moneylender has only a mercenary interest – he uses her to care for a baby left on his doorstep by one the many prostitutes he frequents) puts a spell of seduction on Clemente by wiping herself with her underpants and soaking them in a pitcher of drinking water. She then serves a glass of water to Clemente who drinks it down with gusto, unaware of its magic charms. It works, almost. Clemente is under her spell, but remains resistant to her sexual entreaties, preoccupied with finding the puta de madre of the baby left in his care. It should be noted that the baby steals every scene in which it appears on screen - or off - when all you hear is its crying and all you can think is “take care of that baby!”
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE AS PDF...
Jan Galligan
75Grand/Sur
Santa Olaya, PR
http://75Grand.posterous.com [foto blog]
http://JANGuarte.posterous.com [art blog]